posted at 10:35 am on November 1, 2007 by Bryan

As I reported earlier today, Hillary Clinton has come down on the radical side of granting drivers licenses to illegal aliens. That’s going to resonate in a bad way with the voters, both in the primaries and the general if she gets that far.

Voters want control of the borders and workplace and recreating an immigration system that works and oppose driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants – positions supported by about two-thirds of the country. For them, that is the starting point, the common sense of the issue. If political leaders do not start there, they are not likely to be heard on other steps.

That’s from the latest Democracy Corps (James Carville et al) look at the electorate. And it’s quoted in this very cogent post on theGarance, a liberal blog.

Perhaps I am not giving my fellow Americans enough credit, however, it seems to me that the Democratic presidential field last night just committed suicide en masse, with Hillary Clinton the last to swallow the poison by holding out until this afternoon to endorse New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s proposal to give illegal immigrants some form of driver’s licenses.

Read the whole thing. I’m probably giving it a kiss of death by endorsing it from this political point of view, but it’s right on the money.

Now, that said, how is Hillary responding to the immigration ripples that she started on debate night when she flip-flopped around whether or not to give illegal aliens legal drivers licences? Not well.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) top advisers, doing damage control after the candidate’s debate performance Tuesday, told supporters on a conference call Wednesday that the campaign needed more money to fight back.

More money? The Clinton campaign has raised more money than any previous campaign in history. They don’t need more money. They need a coherent position, and a candidate who believes in it and can convince the voters that she believes in it.

[Clinton advisor Mark Penn], Mantz and several supporters hinted repeatedly on the call that Clinton was unfairly targeted by Tim Russert, debate moderator and host of NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“Russert made it appear that President Clinton had done something new or unusual,” Penn said, before adding that it “is, in fact, an extremely confusing situation … I think there will be further clarification.”

—

While one supporter voiced his concern that the Clinton campaign is not devoting enough money and staff to Iowa, lagging behind Obama, most supporters who commented on the call expressed their displeasure with what they saw as the moderators’ focus on Clinton.

One caller from Oklahoma City said that “the questions … were designed to incite a brawl,” and that Russert’s and Brian Williams’s moderating was “an abdication of journalistic responsibility.”

Another said Russert “should be shot,” before quickly adding that she shouldn’t say that on a conference call.

Penn and Mantz said they were hearing a lot of the same sentiment from other supporters, but they do not plan to engage the media or the debate’s moderators.

Call the waaaambulance, folks. Your candidate is the front-runner. She’s going to be the focus of the debates and she’s going to be asked tough questions. If Hillary can’t face down Tim Russert over a question about the drivers licenses for illegal aliens, how on earth can she face down the mad mullahs over questions about whether or not they’re gunning to nuke Israel?

She’d better learn, and fast. Two-thirds of the voters don’t support her radical position on illegal immigration. Those voters get it; elite Democrats like Hillary and Harry Reid (and too many elite Republicans too) don’t get it. They all just see cheap labor and potential voters. They don’t see or choose not to see the costs in real dollars and national security and national integrity that having essentially no border creates. But 66% of the country sees it, and they’ll vote accordingly.

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What happens when we nominate Rudy, and Rudy attacks her for her position? Hillary will say “I’m confused, didn’t you say If you come here and you work hard and you happen to be in an undocumented status, you’re one of the people who we want in this city. You’re somebody that we want to protect'”….”Didn’t you say you wanted to bring people out of the shadows and stop treating them like criminals? What happened, Rudy? Ambition get in the way of your principles again?”. Would be totally ridiculous, of course, but that would be her play and it would probably work.

So Russert is now part of the VRWC? For asking an apolitical question? In future debates, I assume that the Clinton war machine will vett the moderators better. What I would love to see is more reporters follow Russert’s lead and ask hard questions of all candidates, both Republican and Democrat. If the candidates can’t handle the hard questions, how can they lead the country?

This is beyond simply being soft on illegal immigration. The Dembots’ opposition to voter ID laws coupled with the support for issuing driver’s licenses to illegals constitutes an effort at wide-spread, organized voter fraud.

What I would love to see is more reporters follow Russert’s lead and ask hard questions of all candidates

What I’d love to see is a real debate! Let’s not kid ourselves here. The “debates” are nothing more than press conferences where each of the wannabes have an allotted amount of time to spout the portions of their stump speech that vaguely fits the open-ended question posed by the moderator and known to the wannabes ahead of time.

How about NO questions beyond what the wannabe would do if elected and let them take turns having at one another for an hour! Failing that, what about an entire hour devoted to a very specific topic like what to do in Iraq or what to do about all the illegal aliens with the expectation that the wannabe will have specific solutions- none of this fuzzy crap like “healthcare” or “immigration reform.”

She got back with the campaign organizers and pollsters, community activists and knob polishers, and realized that she was too fully invested in the illegal aliens to back out now — damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead.

Reminds me a little of Dingbat Pelosi and her out-of-power commitments to some Armenians in SanFran that if she ever, somehow, became Speaker Pelosi, she would bring this vote before the House and Shame the Turks! by God. Then, oops! There might be repercussions to that, mightn’t there?

The calculus must have been that illegal aliens really do have election-altering political power, or else she would have thrown them under the bus in a heartbeat.

Turns out most Americans (and this time we really mean most) want these illegals dealt with and disposed of. Our polls and everyone else’s poll say 75% of Americans are against granting drivers licenses to illegals (I know you told us to say undocumented aliens, but golly gee whiz, that’s getting us into a lot of trouble too).

So, what I’m getting at here is, if you want Hill to keep promoting your bullcrap in order to garner the hispanic votes next year, you better shell out a few more million dollars to ease the pain of trying to sell your Mexicana Utopia to the sheeple. For God’s sake, even Russert is turning on us. And what’s up with that? You assured me you had everyone at NBC on the payroll.

So cough it up Georgie, or we will have to resort to recalling Bill’s goon squads to watch Hill’s back.

It’s not about cheap labor and they can’t vote. It’s all about coming out of the shadows TO BE COUNTED IN THE 2010 CENSUS! More people in democrat controlled areas of the country, where most of them reside, MEANS MORE VOTES IN THE HOUSE! They want a bullet proof veto override because, illegal or not…they still get representation in Congress if they come forward!!!

“Russert made it appear that President Clinton had done something new or unusual,” Penn said, before adding that it “is, in fact, an extremely confusing situation … I think there will be further clarification.”

After the October 30 Democratic presidential debate, numerous media figures commented that co-moderator Tim Russert had acted as, in the words of The New York Times, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (NY) “third toughest opponent on the stage.” During the debate, Russert asked a total of 30 distinct questions (not including follow-up questions). Fourteen were either questions directed to Clinton or questions directed to other candidates about Clinton. Many media outlets took note of Russert’s focus on Clinton. Russert has received media attention for his conduct toward Clinton in previous debates as well, including criticism following a debate he moderated in 2000, when Clinton was running for Senate against then-Rep. Rick Lazio (R-NY). Read More

Tim Russert *IS* a libby-dem operative. He was on Moynihan’s staff. On his miserable excuse of a show, he’s always pro-liberal and pro-Democrat. And now Hillary’s crapweasels are trying to smear one of their own. This is so hilarious. The Traitor Party is now eating their own young.

“Russert made it appear that President Clinton had done something new or unusual,” Penn said, before adding that it “is, in fact, an extremely confusing situation … I think there will be further clarification.”

Can’t pull that shit with Fred, though.
RW Wacko on November 1, 2007 at 10:45 AM

Thank goodness Hillary will only be able to point to Fred’s support for terrorists and his long history as a scum bag lobbyist. His attacks on free speech and his funneling of campaign funds to his son.

The story is a bit unclear, but a few paragraphs up – before the discussion of the criticism – is this:

The caller addded [sic] that Clinton’s response to questions about records from her time in the White House that have been sealed by the National Archives “made me roll my eyes.”

The irritation was in response to the fact that, to the Clintonites, Russert’s question made presidential sealing of records seem like an unusual thing instead of a routine practice. Personally, I don’t see that – the question was fair.

I heard on the radio that Keith Ellison had sponsored legislation to repeal the Real ID act. I decided to look it up, and found that the legislation is actually sponsored by Tom Allen (D-ME) and 31 co-sponsors.

To repeal title II of the REAL ID Act of 2005, to reinstitute section 7212 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which provides States additional regulatory flexibility and funding authorization to more rapidly produce tamper- and counterfeit-resistant driver’s licenses and to protect privacy and civil liberties by providing interested stakeholders on a negotiated rulemaking with guidance to achieve improved 21st century licenses to improve national security.

I did find that Mr. Ellison just sponsored legislation to allow same-day voter registration. The money quote:

SEC. 3. TRANSMITTAL OF COMPLETED APPLICATIONS TO STATE ELECTION OFFICIAL.
`(3) In the case of a registration application accepted on the date of an election by a voter registration agency described in paragraph (2)(C), the agency shall transmit the application to the appropriate State election official at the time the agency transmits the ballots cast in the election to the official.’.

(emphasis mine)

If either of these get through, Katie bar the door for the flood of illegals at the polls once they get their hands on a driver’s licenses.

FWIW, I only posed the question out of search engine marketing concerns… Certainly “Hillary supporter wants to shoot Tim Russert” will pull in visitors over the long haul (visitors=ad revenue)… the long haul traffic pull will be significantly less with the generic headline being used.

I’m not telling the fellas how to do their job, just offering a tip… Allah writes clever and funny headlines a lot of the time, but not thing that necessarily convey the message (in the search engines) of what is actually being talked about. Sure, those of us that visit HA see the accompanying photos and are generally on top of the stories and know what is being discussed.. but from Google and Yahoo! search results, the headlines used here at HA aren’t the greatest for pulling in search traffic, and traffic, as we know, is something Allah often expresses concern about.

You want that iPhone, Allah? Work on the headlines. And it’s not just search engines… feed readers, technorati, and countless other blog reading tools and directories displaying things like “Hillary supporter wants to shoot Russert” will pull you a lot more traffic than stuff like this, that’s all I’m saying.

In Wednesday’s conference call, Penn said Clinton “clarified that she does support governors like Gov. Spitzer” who are faced with the issue because of the federal government’s failure to offer comprehensive immigration reform.

This confuses me, because the federal government doesn’t issue driver’s licenses. Unless comprehensive immigration reform was going to eliminate all illegal immigrants, or there was a proposal for federally-issued driver’s licenses, this is an issue that would have- and will- remain with the states.

Please check bylines once in a while. If you want to chide someone for the headline, hit me, not Allah.

As to why I didn’t put that “Russert should be shot” in the headline, it’s an anonymous supporter on a conference call, and people mutter “X should be shot” kind of stuff all the time without meaning anything by it. It may be great for traffic to sensationalize a claim that “HILLARY SUPPORTER WANTS TO KILL TIM RUSSERT!!!!111!!!” but over time it amounts to crying wolf and can ruin our credibility.

If Hillary herself or one of her major advisors had said it, I’d have played it up. But they didn’t. It’s just some Joe Blow and therefore it’s not that big a deal.

Please check bylines once in a while. If you want to chide someone for the headline, hit me, not Allah.

As to why I didn’t put that “Russert should be shot” in the headline, it’s an anonymous supporter on a conference call, and people mutter “X should be shot” kind of stuff all the time without meaning anything by it. It may be great for traffic to sensationalize a claim that “HILLARY SUPPORTER WANTS TO KILL TIM RUSSERT!!!!111!!!” but over time it amounts to crying wolf and can ruin our credibility.

If Hillary herself or one of her major advisors had said it, I’d have played it up. But they didn’t. It’s just some Joe Blow and therefore it’s not that big a deal.

Bryan on November 1, 2007 at 1:45 PM

Don’t take it so personally Bryan, just trying to help, not “chiding”.

And I’m aware of the byline, and didn’t mean to imply that Allah wrote this post, I actually thought I had said “Bryan” somewhere, but looking back I see that I didn’t… My Allah part was just “brining him in to the mix”, and offering a tip for both of you.

Again, I’m not trying to “chide” either of you guys by any means… I like the site, and I’d like to see it’s continued success. I’ve just seen Allah mention traffic being down a number of times, and I suspect that your traffic could be much better with more search traffic. I suspect most of what you get are regular blog readers, whereas generic headlines.. or headlines that don’t really draw you in without the accompanying photo and subheading (seen on the HA home page) are less attractive to search engine folks.

I can’t emphasize enough, I’m not “chiding”, I was genuinely trying to help.

I admit that the “Russert should be shot” line came from some nobody, which is why despite my opinion that it’s still headline worthy, my comments were speaking more generally about headlines overall.

One thing on this “Hillary supporter” though… It’s been at the top of Drudge all day, which often translates in to some MSM mentions, which translates in to people searching for things like ‘hillary russert shot’, etc. I also have to wonder just how much of a “nobody” she really is… I don’t know how these conference calls work, but there are very few supporters (out of the millions of Hillary supporters) who are actually involved in these calls.

Once more, my comments weren’t intended to be “chiding”… I suppose that’s the tough part about text, tone doesn’t always come across. I was simply noticing the hate from the left and it set off a thought I’ve had a number of times when Allah mentions traffic dips, and the fact that I almost never see your posts on the first page of results in the search engines, when looking for topics I know you’ve posted about.

There’s no need to bring anyone else into the mix on a post that I wrote. We’re both too busy to have to weigh in on what the other guy writes.

As for Drudge, I honestly don’t care what does. He goes out of his way not to link righty blogs but is more than happy to link to Politico and other sites that bend left. He and his pals have actually robbed us of traffic. He can sensationalize all he wants to. I don’t follow his leads and don’t intend to start now.

There’s no need to bring anyone else into the mix on a post that I wrote. We’re both too busy to have to weigh in on what the other guy writes.

As for Drudge, I honestly don’t care what does. He goes out of his way not to link righty blogs but is more than happy to link to Politico and other sites that bend left. He and his pals have actually robbed us of traffic. He can sensationalize all he wants to. I don’t follow his leads and don’t intend to start now.

Bryan on November 1, 2007 at 2:34 PM

Again, it was intended to be a general tip for both of you guys about gaining search traffic, that was only sparked by this post. I see that I didn’t make clear a distinction between you guys in my original comment (though in my mind I thought at first I had).

When I mentioned Allah using “clever and funny headlines”, I was attempting to differentiate between your headlines which are often more direct about what the post is about. I realize that the way it’s written, it may have looked like I was speaking about Allah the whole time, but I wasn’t. Again, I only mentioned him, because my point wasn’t just about this post, it was just that this post prompted me to mention something I’ve thought of in the past.

That’s cool, take it or leave it, I just had to clarify I was only trying to help, not bash you guys for how you do things. I just know about search engine traffic, and I see searchers skimming over very general (though to the point) headlines, as well headlines that are clever and funny (but when you’re looking for something specific, might not stand out, without the accompanying picture or knowing the way Allah operates).

As for the Drudge thing, it sounds like I need to clarify that too… I’m not saying “do things for shock value like Drudge!”… I’m just saying that there’s potential for a lot of people to be searching for terms relating to the Hillary supporter wanting to shoot Russert, and having that in a headline has the potential to do wonders for search traffic, particularly since Google loves blogs and spiders the hell out of them… You can sometimes post something and within minutes be listed in regular, natural search results. Maybe you don’t want to roll like that, but it was just a tip on boosting search traffic.

(NOTE: When I speak of “general” headlines above, I’m referring to yours which I usually more clear in what the post is about, but might not jump out in the search engines as much, and when I’m talking about “clever and funny” I’m referring mainly to Allah’s, which again are great around here, but for the purposes of search traffic, aren’t the best.

I haven’t actually used it, but if you’re taking my tip to heart at all (without being pissed that I’m “chiding” you guys), take a look:

Title tags are arguably the most important of the on-page factors for search engine optimization (”SEO”). It blows my mind how post titles are also used as title tags by WordPress, considering that post titles should be catchy, pithy, and short-and-sweet; whereas title tags should incorporate synonyms and alternate phrases to capture additional search visibility.

Now, thankfully, there is a solution, allowing you to decouple post titles from title tags. Introducing… the SEO Title Tag 2.1 WordPress plugin.

Never mind tough questions, Hillary would flip-flop and blam Bush if they asked her what her favorite color is. “This administration has cast a cloud over the American landscape which has dulled the brilliancy of the once-great colors we once enjoyed.”

Even on a mega primary day with same day registration and no picture id requirement easy just pick three states adjacent to each other holding primaries the same day.

Go 20 miles in from the common junction register and vote
Drive 45 miles to the next state over register and vote
Head 75 miles in another direction to the third state register and vote.

Maybe 6 hours work even with a lunch break. Need an address, that’s what they make google earth and mapquest and phone books for.

Think they are gonna complain if you say you live at 419 Maple St as long as it is a real house there and not a Kmart. Who cares if somebody by another name lives there all you need is the address and you don’t have any burden of proof that you live there.

A simple scam that was used for a long time by people collection welfare in two or three states at the same time until the states started cross checking welfare rolls.

I’m just hoping that the Dhems (I loved the earlier posted “dembot” moniker BTW) let Hitlary get the nomination. She will be crushed in a general election by ANY of the candidates on the elephant side. Obama would be crushed too, but I worry about an Edwards nomination. The Brie cheese and proto-lesbian crowd who voted for Kerry would vote for him in a second so it would be another nail-biter.

As mentioned above, Rudy’s hands are dirtly with the illegal issue so he couldn’t make much of it in the campaign. Fred, on the other hand, would be the perfect foil for her insane position of giving legal rights to illegal interlopers.

Leadership for Dummies is appropriate for a dummy like Hitlerly Clinton. For years she and her husband have believed that lordship is theirs and leadership is something that has no place in their governing by edict and mandate driven policies.